Mahmudur Rahman
Mahmudur Rahman is the owner and editor of the Bengali daily Amar Desh in Bangladesh also an author, engineer and businessman. A strong critic of the Awami League government since 2008, he has faced over 50 defamation and sedition charges. He is the only person sentenced for contempt by the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, with human rights groups labeling the government's actions against him as judicial harassment.
Early life
Rahman was born in Comilla, East Bengal, Pakistan. His mother, Mahmuda Begum, passed away at the age of 87 on July 6, 2025.Education
He received his Bachelor of Chemical Engineering in 1977 from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology. After working in engineering in Japan, he returned to earn a graduate diploma in ceramic engineering. He also earned an M.B.A. from the Institute of Business Administration, Dhaka University.Career
Mahmudur Rahman, a former operational engineer, founded Artisan Ceramics Limited in 1999. He chaired Bangladesh's National Investment Board, boosting foreign investment significantly. As Energy Adviser, he faced protests over fuel price hikes and environmental issues. Later, he acquired Amar Desh newspaper, transforming it into a leading opposition voice.File:Ekushey Padak 2025 Award Ceremony Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus Presents Ekushey Padak Osmani Memorial Auditorium Dhaka 2025-02-20.jpg|thumb|Rahman receives 2025 Ekushey Padak from Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus.
Business career
Mahmudur Rahman started his career as an operational engineer at British Oxygen, a major British-owned gas company. He also worked in Monno Ceramics, Duncan Brothers, Shinepukur Ceramics, Beximco Group, and Padma Textile, including some years in Japan.After returning to Bangladesh, Mahmudur Rahman started and developed his own company, Artisan Ceramics Limited in 1999. It was the first bone china plant in the country and a technological breakthrough. Artisan Ceramics was sold in 2013.
Political career
Mahmudur Rahman chaired the National Investment Board in Bangladesh from 2001, boosting foreign investment from $52 million to $460 million by 2004. In 2005, he became Energy Adviser, negotiating key deals with Cairn Energy and Vulcan Inc. His tenure faced protests over fuel price hikes and environmental issues. Amid political tensions in 2006, he was accused of election interference during a military takeover in 2007, reflecting the challenges of governance in a turbulent era.National Investment Board
Mahmudur Rahman was appointed by the administration of Khaleda Zia as chair of the National Investment Board. In 2002, he described the obstacles to foreign investment in Bangladesh as the "five 'I's": "image, information, infrastructure, implementation and inefficiency" and committed the government to achieving change. He credited the opening of the power plant Meghna Energy Limited in Kanchpur, to the government's energy deregulation. Between 2002 and 2003, foreign investment in Bangladesh increased from $52 million to US$121 million, an increase which Mahmudur Rahman said was the greatest in South Asia. In 2004, the United Nations reported that foreign investment in Bangladesh had reached a record US$460 million.Political unrest arose in 2004. On 21 August, grenade attacks at an opposition Awami League rally killed 20 and injured around 300 others. General strikes against Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's government were held regularly throughout the end of the year. Mahmudur Rahman criticized both sides, saying that such political violence and unrest threatened much-needed foreign investment, and the government had to provide security. He offered his resignation in December 2004, reportedly over a dispute with officials in the Prime Minister's Office, but Zia declined to accept it. Mahmudur Rahman continued in the post for the remainder of his "two-year contractual obligation".
Mahmudur Rahman's goal was to attract US$1 billion in investment to Bangladesh while in office. He said that Bangladesh's infrastructure needed improvement. The government encouraged foreign investment in infrastructure through a "build-own-transfer" model. In May 2005, Mahmudur Rahman announced a deal with the US company Vulcan Inc. to invest $1.6 billion in new power and fertiliser plants, projected to increase Bangladesh's energy capacity by nearly 50 percent.
In August 2005, Mahmudur Rahman sued five members of the Centre for Policy Dialogue, a private think tank, for defamation after they criticised his investment policy. He said they had made "disgraceful, false and fabricated statements". The Hindustan Times said the suit and issuance of related arrest warrants, was an example of "persecution of intellectuals critical of the government" and the persons sued were renowned in their field.
Energy Adviser
The June 2005 explosion at Niko Resources Tengratila Gas Field in Sunamganj District, was the second during the project to revive the Chattack field. Against accusations that Niko had bribed Energy Adviser Mosharraf Hossain, he resigned.Mahmudur Rahman was named to succeed him. In August 2005, he announced completion of a deal with the British oil company Cairn Energy to explore oil and gas deposits offshore Bangladesh.
The following month, Mahmudur Rahman participated in talks for a transborder natural gas pipeline from Burma's Arakan State to India, to pass through Bangladesh. The deal was shelved in early October 2005 after Bangladesh asked for additional trade concessions, and Burma and India chose to develop a direct route between them. In 2006, Mahmudur Rahman accused Burma and India of having encroached on thousands of square miles of Bangladeshi territorial waters for natural gas exploration.
Mahmudur Rahman was involved in talks between the government and India's Tata Group in early 2006 over a $300 million proposal to build steel and fertiliser factories, as well as a power plant. After the talks were unsuccessful, Mahmudur Rahman opened talks with Pakistan's Dawood Group in August 2006 on a more modest $30 million deal.
In September 2005, Mahmudur Rahman announced a 16 percent increase in petrol prices to aid the government-owned Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation, due to the price increases for crude oil on world markets. The price hikes sparked protests in Dhaka, and the government adopted a five-day workweek to conserve energy. It expected that the private sector would follow the government example. In June 2006, Mahmudur Rahman announced an additional one-third increase in petrol prices, as well as a 10 percent increase in diesel and kerosene prices, one of the largest fuel-price hikes in Bangladesh's history.
In late August 2006, protesters demanded Mahmudur Rahman's resignation as energy adviser and burned him in effigy in response to plans by the British corporation Asia Energy to develop an open-pit coal mine in Phulbari, Dinajpur district. Activists said that the mine would cause environmental damage, threaten water supply, and displace up to 120,000 residents of the area, including the Shantal indigenous peoples. On the first day of protests, police killed six persons and 300 were injured in a massive protest of 30,000 people outside the local Asia Energy offices. The protests spread and the next day, twenty people were injured. Students at Dhaka University joined the effort. An estimated 70,000 people in total joined the protests across the country. As of December 2010, the mine was still being protested and the government had not awarded a contract for its development.
In 2006, Mahmudur Rahman urged calm, saying, "This incident has sent the wrong message to foreign investors, which we cannot afford at all when we are struggling hard to woo more and more investment."
Caretaker government
's government ended in October 2006 and, under the constitution, elections are supposed to take place within three months, or January 2007. That fall there was a fierce struggle among the numerous parties, 14 of which were part of an Awami League-alliance and several were allied with the BNP. The caretaker government was trying to bring all parties to the table to settle election questions amidst rising tensions and violence. Arab News noted when reporting the late November 2006 incident below, that "At least 40 people were killed and hundreds injured in clashes between rival parties since late October."As a former energy adviser, Mahmudur Rahman kept in touch with colleagues from the BNP in the government. On 24 November 2006, journalists and TV news reporters took photos of 44 BNP administration officials, some retired like Mahmudur Rahman and others incumbents, leaving Mahmudur Rahman's office after a midnight meeting; many tried to hide their faces. A spokesman from the Awami League said that the men were meeting to try to "rig" the scheduled January 2007 election for BNP and its allies. Mahmudur Rahman denied the charge, saying he was holding a "private party" for friends to see his new office. The Awami League called for a boycott of the scheduled January 2007 elections, demanding electoral reform.
In January 2007, the military led by General Moeen took over the caretaker government, and imposed a state of emergency. According to the then Presidential Adviser and Minister Mukhlesur Rahman Chowdhury, Army Chief, Lt. Gen. Moeen was the main force in the military intervention and declaration by President Iajuddin Ahmed of a state of emergency on 11 January 2007. Moeen and his associates selected that illegal government's chief advisor, Fakhruddin Ahmed. Iauddin Ahmed continued as president. In March 2007, the caretaker government charged Khaleda Zia's two sons with corruption. In April, it announced a ban on politicians visiting the former prime minister, under the conditions of the emergency. The CTG also charged some of Zia's ministers with corruption. Also in April 2007, the CTG sued Sheikh Hasina, leader of the Awami League, for graft.
On 31 March 2007, the Establishment Ministry announced that it had completed a three-person inquiry into the actions of some of the senior officials at the November 2006 meeting with ex-energy advisor Mahmudur Rahman. As a result, it reassigned 13 men out of office to positions as "officers on special duty". Three of the men were "joint secretaries, four deputy secretaries and six senior assistant secretaries."
The CTG in late 2008 began to prepare for an election that year. In October 2008, shortly before the December election, Mahmudur Rahman filed a complaint with the Anti-Corruption Commission, against its chair General Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury. Mahmudur Rahman accused the BNP appointee of having misappropriated 224.1 million taka in a money-laundering scheme. After an investigation, on 19 March 2009, an ACC internal committee dismissed the complaint as "baseless and unmotivated". It noted that Mahmudur Rahman had failed to appear personally before the committee to provide evidence.
The election was held on 29 December 2008. The Awami League and its Grand Alliance came to power with two-thirds of the seats in Parliament. In 2010, the Awami League government charged the 13 bureaucrats of what had become known as the "Uttara Conspiracy" with sedition. They received bail. At that time, eleven were still serving in the government and two had retired.